Meletus Prosecution Speech A Fictional Account
Athenians, I will not take up much more of your time, for Anytus and Lycon have yet to speak. Today we are still in festival to Apollo, the second day of purification and renewal. 1 Yesterday, we scoured what we could by sending away the vulgar polluted ones, but every pollution has a source. Dear judges, Socrates of Alopece is that source. He is the most pestilential of all the cancerous wise-men and sophists at work in our once great city. There is still much for our city to renew. Our democracy is now just three years restored from the cruel villainy of the oligarchy. As you all know, the man sitting before you was teacher and friend to some of those Thirty Tyrants, including, and especially, their vile atheist leader Critias. No sophistical trick Socrates might conjure can change that fact, gentlemen. In corrupting our young gentlemen, Socrates produces fresh tyrants for our city. And by Zeus we cannot stand idly by and let this spiteful man train up a few more! For as some of you know even today numbering among Socrates pupils is Critias own nephew, the young Plato! Do not be misled, men of the jury, our city is not yet free from the grave threat posed by the socratified youth. And though Socrates may have plots in wait, we know, as the great poet Hesiod tells us: An evil plan harms the plotter most. 1 Either on, or before, the day of Socrates trial was the annual Athanian scapegoating festival, called Thargelia. In this festival, two lowly (probably criminal) Athenians on the margins of society were marched around the city in order to soak up pollution (miasma) and then exiled beyond the borders of the city. It was a religious festival. 1
Gentlemen, what can I tell you about this man that you haven t seen for yourselves? You know too well how Socrates operates. He is a spell-binder and leach who gathers around himself a little cabal of weird and effeminate young men and then, for their enjoyment, latches onto one of our citizens and sets to upbraid and riddle them about the right and the wrong. He sets to shame citizens, like you, publicly because why? you haven t been trained in the art of rhetoric and sophistry? Socrates prides himself on instructing Athens on its ignorance, but it is time now that we give Socrates an instruction in the truth. And it is not a lesson he is bound to like! Far from honoring and recognizing the city s gods, Socrates preaches against our religion. You know I speak the truth, gentlemen. He mocks the noble poets and the sacred stories that have educated our children. He denies the worth of the traditions that have nursed this city to greatness. He scoffs at the rites and the festivals that curry our favor with the gods. And worst of all, gentlemen, he encourages our young men to do the same! It is no surprise that the Socratified General Alcibiades vandalized our religious statues, mocked our mysteries, and then upon the discovery of his crime fled Athens and joined with the Spartans in war against us, against his own city. Now, few of you here have not had the misfortune of crossing paths with this treacherous man in the agora. You have heard Socrates deride our political lottery as 2
useless. 2 You have heard him deride our democratic council members as inept. You have heard him deride the middleclass as vulgar. And you have seen him teach such derision to his pupils. It is no surprise that the Socratified Critias and Charmides became such monsters! This is the truth jurymen, by the gods. I tell you, if he could, Socrates would have the city sever its bond with our divine patrons. He would strip away your political rights and your civic duties. And he would outlaw your religious practices and forbid you to teach your children yourself. Socrates would have that Athens become a child of Sparta, but ruled by a small, irreligious gaggle of elitist pederasts, immoral sophists, and science fetishists. He would, out of spite and arrogance, take away all your power and give the city back to its foes his friends! Now, you have also heard of Socrates profound arrogance in matters concerning daimonia. He says the gods speak to him directly. What gods? I ask. Gentlemen, whatever new-fangled divinity it is that communicates with Socrates, I promise that it is no god recognized by the city. I promise you also that they were not our gods who instructed Socrates to neglect his profession and civic responsibilities and spend his time, 2 Athenian democracy was direct democracy (instead of a representative democracy) meaning that all important issues were settled directly by the citizens who casted their votes in the general assembly. There were, however, still some political officials, but these officials were selected at random by a lottery. Socrates was fundamentally opposed to this way of doing things. 3
instead, stalking the palaestra, 3 teaching our young men to hate the city and its people. Socrates religion is for his benefit alone, and whatever absurd communion Socrates fancies that he has with the divine, he has placed his religion, and his personal welfare, above the city s religion and the city s welfare. His is a hubris that should remain a pollution where it is and not pollute any further. You have heard him deny that the greatness of our city depends on the pleasure and honor we pay to our patron gods. There are even reports of Socrates saying, in this extreme hubris, that the gods are restrained by mortal laws and obliged to a human notion of justice. You see, gentlemen, this man has no fear of Immortal Zeus. Yet, he would have Athens worship spiritual things as docile and weak-kneed as slave-women, gods who lack the power and manly virtue to punish and reward cities. We do wrong by the gods if we fail to find Socrates guilty. I tell you, we have already done wrong by the gods in waiting so long to deal with this pollution. And we have suffered the consequences. Every sensible Athenian knows that without the favor of the gods Athens is but a shambles and a morass of disorder. Consider our recent military defeats. The gods have abandoned us, men of Athens. And why? They are ill-pleased with the canker we let fester in the heart of our city. Socrates is this canker. Recall, again, the words of 3 A Palaestra was an Ancient Greek wrestling school. 4
the great Hesiod: Often a whole community together suffers as a consequence of one bad man. But not only has Socrates driven a wedge between the city and its gods, he drives a wedge between fathers and their sons. It is not our god who instructs Socrates to declare Athenian parents incompetent to teach their children right and wrong. Yet, you have heard him preach on such incompetence! Socrates encourages young men to elevate themselves above their uneducated fathers, not unlike Socrates has elevated himself above the city. He is your villain and no true citizen. We ve suffered two coups in ten years. Are we to sit back and wait for the next one? Are we to give license to this wise-man that he might go on producing, for the city, fresh tyrants? Are we to give license to Socrates that he might, for us, despise the city and anger our divine benefactors. By the gods, gentlemen, young men don t just wake up one morning and decide to become traitors! There has to be a reason, and you re looking at him! To acquit Socrates now would be to nourish against the city the cockle of rebellion and foreign religion, tyranny and divine scorn! He has been a plague for too long. The man invites a wrath with each word he coughs forward against our traditions. So, let us finally spit him out of our city. There will be no remedy for us until then. Now, before I turn matters over to our heroes Anytus and Lycon, I urge you to be on guard against the force of Socrates eloquent and accomplished speech. As soon as he opens his mouth, he will do his usual violence to 5
straightforward thinking and tie all of your arguments against him into philosophical knots. So, I ask that you armor yourselves by considering the duty of an Athenian judge. You men were all, just like our council members, selected by lot. So you are a representation of our polis, of our democracy. It is the primary duty of an Athenian judge, just as it is the duty of a council member, to protect this democracy from the impiety that would bring our city low. I am certain that you have seen, as I have, that Socrates, and his students, have brought our city low. 6
You know too well how Socrates operates. He is a spell-binder and leach who gathers around himself a little cabal of weird and effeminate young men and then, for their enjoyment, latches onto one of our citizens and sets to upbraid and riddle them about the right and the wrong. He sets to shame citizens, like you, publicly because why? you haven t been trained in the art of rhetoric and sophistry? Socrates prides himself on instructing Athens on its ignorance, but it is time now that we give Socrates an instruction in the truth. And it is not a lesson he is bound to like! By the gods, gentlemen, young men don t just wake up one morning and decide to become traitors 7